


The Many Small Deaths of Till Lindemann

by Apathy



Category: RAMMSTEIN - Works, Rammstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:12:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apathy/pseuds/Apathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you prick Till, does he not bleed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Many Small Deaths of Till Lindemann

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltedpin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/gifts).



> An extremely silly and literal interpretation of _Haifisch_. Pays no attention to actual chronological order of film clips in reality.

At first, it had been confusing. Then, kind of interesting.

Now, it’s just tedious.

Each day Till wakes up, and wonders what it will be this time.

The early ones had been pretty cool, to be honest. Plunging to a brutal death off a mountain, the world slowing to a crawl for an infinitesimal moment as his arm reached out of its own volition, before time suddenly caught up with him and he suddenly caught up with his stomach, and he plummeted to the rocks below in the blink of an eye.

Getting blown up had been pretty epic -- even as he’d been pissed off, he’d also been impressed. He’d always wanted to go out with a bang, and the explosion had been worthy of his general awesomeness.

Hell, he’d even died on the freaking moon. What could be more hardcore than that?

Sure, he’s not sure how they actually all got to the moon in the first place, but it all seems a little beyond the point.

But after that, things got a little... strange.

He could tolerate getting crushed to death by a slippery, sweaty, writhing pile of naked men. He’d even been a little turned on, at the end. And when Flake drowned him in a sea of his own never-ending jizz... well, there were worse ways to go.

But then it got weirder. Getting hit by a car when Schneider took him for a walk around Deutsche Oper. Getting attacked by a wolf with fur that would better suit a particularly unfashionable monk. Getting stuck with angel feathers in places that he would have thought angels feared to tread. Olli whispering ‘Jump!’ at him whenever they were somewhere more than two storeys high. Richard making kissy faces at himself, which was more incentive for Till to jump than pretty much anything else.

He’d demanded to know why. Used his rather impressive bulk to back Flake into a corner. Threatened to break all of Richard’s mirrors. Tried to confiscate Paul’s bowls and scissors. Attempted to hide Schneider’s rather sizeable collection of women’s clothes. Told Olli that he was the only member of Olli's fan club, and he'd only started it as a joke.

But it had all been for naught. They’d pretended not to understand him, jokingly clapped him on the back and told him to cut down on the ouzo. Just exhausted and paranoid from all the touring, they said. He really should take some time to relax.

And for awhile, it seemed to work. They started writing songs again. Till stopped going to breakfast with a knife tucked into his rather impressive waistband. He stopped finding pictures of other singers and bands not-hidden around the place.

(That time he found a heart-encircled photo of Jon Bon Jovi under Olli’s pillow had been rough. It’s one thing to talk about replacing him, but _that_ is something else entirely. He had wept manfully for hours afterwards, staring off into space with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

The way Olli had then spent the next week going around in a mullet wig had just been cruel and unnecessary. Till’s pretty sure there’s some sort of Geneva Convention against that kind of thing.)

There’d been one time when he almost choked on a pube that he found in his soup, but he was willing to handwave that as accidental, or, at worst, a dumb prank with annoying but non-fatal consequences.

They’d even stopped doing such outlandish music videos, instead opting for somewhat more boring, mainstream videos. Safe videos. Nothing that could cause his sudden, horrible demise.

... Slow and excruciating was another matter, however.

‘Put a light in your mouth,’ Paul had said.

‘It’ll look so cool,’ Paul had said.

‘The needle is completely sterile,’ Paul had said.

‘It’s only a little bit red. You won’t need antibiotics for that,’ Paul had said.

Fucking Paul and his fucking puppy dog face.

Till sits with the ice pack held gingerly to his grossly swollen cheek, unsure of which hurts more -- the ice touching his face, or going without the cool, vague relief it provides when he can bring himself to make contact.

He really doesn’t feel so good. Kind of hot, and dizzy.

'Fuck.'

He keels over. Everything goes black.

At the last, he is vaguely aware of his fucking stupid mouth, illuminating the room.

*

Till is getting really sick of waking up in a morgue.

This time, there will be no platitudes that can change his mind, no declarations of undying friendship (or at least the ability to write some pretty good fucking songs together, when they can be bothered) that can make him stay.

He arranges for one of his older bastard kids to take care of the paperwork (after promises of a hefty payout in return for his help, of course), and quietly slips off into the woods, toe tag dragging through the dead leaves, pale arse winking in the moonlight.

*

Hawai’i is great. No snow. No rehearsals. No living in fear of his own bandmates.

He almost convinces himself that it was some kind of psychotic break on his part. It’s not like his friends were really conspiring to kill him on a near-daily basis, or that he’s some kind of deathless freak. Even he isn’t self-obsessed enough to think that he can repeatedly come back from the dead, and he is, he must admit, pretty self-obsessed.

Anyway, there’s plenty of sunshine, beaches, and pussy for him in Oahu. He certainly has no trouble getting laid here, and will undoubtedly soon have some new heirs to replace the ones he left behind.

Plus, he can finally grow the pornstache that he always wanted, but which Paul had always vetoed for some reason. He’s going to grow the biggest, most glorious pornstache known to mankind, and no-one can stop him.

He looks down at the postcard. One final ‘fuck you’ to the lot of them, even if the message doesn't really make sense. It’s a bit risky, he knows, but he has plans to be elsewhere by the time the card reaches Germany.

Maria -- or is it Monique? -- licks the stamp, and he presses it down on the card.

There.

He smiles, satisfied.

He doesn’t know what their fucking problem is, but he does know that he’s free. He’s outsmarted them. He...

... is aware of Karen -- no, Lena, he’s sure of it -- sagging against him. She tumbles to the ground, tongue lolling.

Oh, that is _it_.

They can kill him, fuck with his head, tie him up and spank him in ways that don’t really seem entirely relevant to anything in particular, but they do _not_ mess with Suzy.

Anna.

Whatever.

*

For the first time since this... _thing_... started, he sits down and thinks about it. _Really_ thinks. Tries to work out the moment when it all changed.

When he finally makes the connection, he wonders why he didn’t make it sooner. After all, getting set on fire is generally a pretty memorable experience.

On the other hand, his life has been full of such ‘memorable experiences’ of late, so he guesses he can be excused.

Till closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he is back in Romania, distant torchlight flickering in the darkness. Back in the place where it first happened. If he’d been paying attention back then, he would’ve thought a little harder about why he’d managed to walk away from being burnt at the stake while his supposed friends fuelled the fire.

He creeps down the streets. The townsfolk seem to have worn themselves out on feasting and dancing; nobody stirs at the sound of his footsteps, even when he trips and stumbles.

Eventually he makes it to the room where he knows the others will be sleeping, worn out after a good, honest bout of self-flagellation.

Till peers in through the window, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness enough to make out the outlines of the huddled forms. He counts them. Five. Good. He goes around and locks the door, then eases the window open ever so slightly, wincing as it creaks.

Schneider turns a little in his sleep.

‘You’re a beautiful man,’ mumbles Richard. ‘A beautiful, beautiful man.’

‘Why, thank you,’ Richard mumbles back to himself.

Till pulls a cigar and match from his pocket. He strikes the match alight on the magnificent bristles of his moustache, shielding the flame from view as he lights the cigar. He savours the first few puffs before, almost regretfully, he holds the end of it to the curtain inside the window.

He watches and waits, stepping back into the shadows. Inevitably, the others wake, but it’s too late -- Paul beats against the window pathetically, but is too overcome by smoke to have any effect.

Till smiles, and, with a touch of his old flair returning, conjures up his stupid gigantic fire truck. He jumps aboard, his face the very picture of the most sincere of concern. His fireman’s hose is ready; his fireman’s hat is at a jaunty angle. Sleepy-eyed villagers are starting to peer from their doors.

He can see the one moment of beautiful, sincere hope in Paul’s eyes as he aims the hose at the building... and he sees it snuffed out as the hose breaks, a sad sputtering of water quickly deflating to a trickle.

Paul’s screams and curses are quite impressively loud, given that he has been choking on black smoke for the past minute or two. Till cups his hand to his ear, shakes his head, exaggeratedly mouths ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,’ and waves a cheerful farewell.

He tries for a three-point turn in his giant fuck-off truck. After a couple of abortive attempts, he goes ‘fuck it’, and just ploughs through any buildings that are in his way, grabbing random village women and pulling them aboard as he happily drives off into the sunrise.


End file.
